Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9202260

Vladimir Putin will spark a third world war if the Russian president is allowed to declare victory in Ukraine, according to the boss of the country’s biggest private employer.

Yuriy Ryzhenkov, chief executive of Metinvest, which ran the sprawling Azovstal steelworks that became the site of a relentless Russian assault at the start of the 2022 invasion, warned of the consequences of a Kremlin victory.

“I don’t believe that if Ukraine fails, Putin will stop,” he said in an interview ahead of the two year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. “The Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia are the next targets.”

    • illi@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Slovakia is also falling to Russian stooges nd disinformation. It looks to me like if they’d invade about half the people (current government included) woud welcome them (at least at first)

  • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

    People arguing for russia at this point are russian trolls. Just like it is impossible tonchange a russian trolls mind it is impossible tonchange mine on this. What else does Putin have to do? Send nukes? Probably still a reasonable man in those trolls eyes.

    • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      The best way to tell that someone thinks you’re actually right is when they break out the “everybody else is a bot” argument. It’s massively cringe at this point, cause you’re intentionally believing something absurd rather than face valid criticism.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        So are you are you a russian troll because i did not at any point mention bots but actual human beings paid by russia?

        • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Oh, of course, that sure is a meaningful difference. My mistake though, please re-read my comment but replace the word bot with troll.

          • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            It still is nktnright but if it helps you feel to be in the right (spoiler alert, everybody does) there is not much i can do. Many people, me included, are tired of discussing the same moot points over and over. That russia pays shills to spread their bullshit “arguments” that try to defend this hideous unjustified war is prooven but i guess then you would want me to not believe the “propaganda” from the west but instead the “news” out of russia. Do you see the issue?

            • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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              9 months ago

              I see what you’re saying, but it’s still a lie to claim most people who support Russia online are shills. The number of people who call me a shill, on a wide variety of topics, has shown me that it’s an argument only used by idiots and the intellectually dishonest. Literally every topic where the American position is wrong, people call you a shill for disagreeing with America. To be clear, both America and Russia are bad countries, and the question of which is worse is pretty close. So suggesting that someone is a shill simply because they think that in one particular area, America is worse than Russia, is intellectually dishonest. Like, right now America is clearly worse, because of the genocide. 2 years ago Russia was clearly worse, because of Ukraine. The war certainly isn’t good, but it’s not as bad or as unjustifiable as people say.

              You should not believe western corporate media, and even moreso western media about russia, unless it’s independent. I’m sure Russian media is as bad as American media, I just never see it due to not speaking Russian. The opposite of propaganda is not different propaganda.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        By the way i do not believe putin is about to start ww3. Thats something you probably assumed.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    He does not have to wait for victory in Ukraine. All he has to do if spark tensions and commit to taking some insignificant piece of a NATO country.

    A place that is not important enough to throw nukes over.

    And then see if NATO dares to respond.

    The politicians will then debate if this is really good enough reason to go to war… Causing a fracture to be visible in the NATO all for one doctrine.

    Once that is proven false… NATO will start to crumble.

    • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Mf is a raptor at the electric fence. First Georgia… then Crimea. Dude… I remember feeling like I was in another world. Obama just watched and did nothing and the world went on, and I’m sitting there thinking, this is fucking precedent forever and it will continue. This headline is outdated by over 15 years.

  • Ooops@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Putin can actually claim whatever he wants and does so regularly. No one actually cares. And no claim or “being allowed to claim something” will actually change reality.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      9 months ago

      I think he meant “declare” as in actually win the war, not in the Michael Scott sense.

    • force@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, if he took over Kazakhstan tomorrow the US would leave it at writing a strongly worded letter…

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Didn’t already claim that “all goals are met”?

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      People care.

      It’s just that the people who care are mostly non-Russian, and even the Russians who do care and realise they have aa psychopathic neo-Hitler as a leader have little to no recourse on the matter.

      And what are western news gonna do, just completely ignore his lies and not print anything about him, as all he says is lies?

      He doesn’t need to change the reality for his words to matter. He only needs to keep convincing the Russian orcs of his bullshit, so they keep going to war for him.

      My wish is that there’d be someone near Putin who would see the light and Putin would “accidentally fall out of a window” or “suddenly and unexpectedly” die of a heartattack after having his afternoon tea. I don’t have faith in that happening, but man do I wish it did.

      I think the next leader would reconsider this “special military operation”, even if they were a right-wing conservative.

      But I don’t have much hope… I heard about how Russia is trying to entice American conservatives to Russia. I thought it was something a bit exaggerated. But then I saw the bit on Jon Stewart where he showed Tucker Carlson visiting Russia. What. The. Fuck.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY

      • Nudding@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Fair enough. I just think that the country with military bases in almost every country, that’s been at war for all but ~20 years of its entire history, is actively aiding in a genocide, while also attacking targets in the middle east, is gonna be the country to start ww3. Call me crazy I guess.

        • WhiteHawk@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Who would they be fighting in that hypothetical war? Iran? It’s not really a world war if no great power is involved.

          • Nudding@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I dunno, I’ve heard people argue that we’re already in WW3, and that Putin started it years ago. I guess it all depends on what the history books of the future consider the smallest dominoes. Time will tell.

            • WhiteHawk@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              It’s still a proxy war for now (even if only one side is using a proxy), I wouldn’t call that a world war

              • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                So where Vietnam and Afghanistan. Both great powers got their teeth kicked in and withdrew because the wars where no longer politically expedient.

                I imagine this is a bit more existential for Putin, but it is also more costly by an order of magnitude.

              • Nudding@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Could lead to escalations, which would in hindsight be a clear path to world war. Interesting discussion to be had for sure.

                • WhiteHawk@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Certainly possible, but in that case the US’s activities in the middle east couldn’t really be blamed

    • Mrkawfee@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      America and it’s proxies bombing and committing genocide doesn’t count.

    • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Whatabout, Whatabout, Whatabout. Two wrongs don’t make a right, genocide and bombing civilians is bad no matter who does it.

  • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    That’s absurd, what is anybody’s source on this claim? America can end this war in a month by just strong arming Ukraine to surrender Crimea. And best of all, if the conspiracy theory is true, we will know immediately, because Russia will have already gotten what they say they want.

    • khannie@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      My neighbour keeps trying to steal my property. Maybe if I just give him some he’ll stop.

      Brilliant.

      • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        You left out that your neighbor is more than capable of taking it by force, and you making him do so will cause millions of deaths. The answer to this question depends entirely on America’s ego. If we do our usual thing, we will save face and cause millions of deaths. If we instead choose to wage peace, we look slightly weaker, and prevent a world war. It’s unlikely America is capable of advanced reasoning such as this, but I really hope we are.

        • khannie@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Let’s go back to the days of redrawing borders by force. That definitely won’t encourage more wars.

          Brilliant.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      9 months ago

      The problem with that, beyond the moral one, is that if that happens, it basically establishes a world order where the only guarantee to any kind of territorial sovereignty are nuclear weapons and the will to use them.

      The deal with Ukraine was that they agreed to give away their nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees to its territorial integrity. Russia went back on that promise, if the US would follow suit, that means a global arms race for nukes.

      • Schmetterchen@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        The deal with Ukraine was that they agreed to give away their nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees to its territorial integrity. Russia went back on that promise

        Ukraine and Russia had an agreement and Russia leased Sevastopol from them. Then after the Euromaiden protests / ouster of the Russia friendly regime they wanted to join Nato. So they’d either lose Sevastopol, their Fleet HQ for Russia in the Black Sea, or have it surrounded by Nato weapons. What use is a naval HQ if it’s surrounded by the enemy?

        Here is a pretty good article why this war started: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

        And no, I don’t like Putin at all or make any excuses for Russia, but the invasion wasn’t quite willy nilly or makes him Hitler.

      • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Nobody should want American nukes in Ukraine, any more than we should want Russian nukes in Cuba. So Russia went back on their word, that’s not actually relevant to anyone else. I can assure you that going forward, people will definitely continue to lie, especially concerning global politics/war

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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          9 months ago

          Ukraine had Soviet nukes, not American ones.

          If they knew the Russians were lying, they would have never given up their nuclear weapons. And it’s because Russia lies as a matter of course that nobody takes CSTO seriously as opposed to NATO.

    • flappy@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      That would be a 180 even someone as dumb as Trump wouldn’t do.

        • enieffak@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Trump wouldn’t have started a war with Hitler. We all should vote for Trump. He’s a stable genius.

          • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            Good thing America has literally never been criticized for being too uninvolved in other peoples busoness. I promise you, if Hitler 2 comes around, not even a president can prevent America joining the war.

    • tobi@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      You never know - Putin attacked Georgia and Syria.

      • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        True, Putin could be plotting global domination as we speak. Hell, he might be planning domination of the entire galaxy as we speak! But we have zero reason to believe he wants to do so, even if he were capable of it, which he’s not. Y’know, I bet his incapability of it has a lot to do with why he doesn’t want to try.

        • enieffak@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Putin is a totally trustworthy open-minded guy caring for people. Letting him do what he wants will lead to safety, democracy and peace. He is just like Hitler. We should have never gone to war against Hitler.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Now they no longer provide any support… how will that strong arming work? Give them less? (This is the thing that the isolationists overlook in the US, the US buys their influence).

      Sure Ukraine has it difficult, but it has not even conscripted their youngest fittest men. It is silly to think either side currently has the power to beat the other. In the current stance this can last another decade.

      • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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        Oh, is America no longer supporting Ukraine? News to me. If that were true, that’d be great. If Ukraine can win their war without us, more power to them, seriously. I hope they win. As long as America is uninvolved, I’m happy. The east is more than welcome to settle border disputes on their own.

        • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          LOL, isolationism and no understanding of geopolitics.

          The US is as rich and powerful because one of their key exports is safety for their allies.

          Once that goes out the window many other things might change or fade away.

          Trying to be top dog of a global trade empire and being an isolationist don’t go well together.

          And if the US where to abandon Europe/Ukraine, why would anyone care to stop trade with China, once the inevitable clash between the US and China occurs.

          The US needs their allies just as much as they need the US.

          • Thief_of_Crows@lemmy.ml
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            Agreed, we need to stop being the top dog, and start coexisting with Russia and China as equals. There is zero reason we need anyone to not trade with China, or why we need to be the “world police”. It’s gotten us nothing but inequality and terrible life outcomes, we NEED to stop trying to make it happen.

    • WhiteWolfLT@pawb.social
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      9 months ago

      Article may be exaggerating the possible escalation if ukraine fully looses the war. But your comment makes no sense. US is not at liberty to force the US into a decision by itself, for that europe would have accept that and it could very well brake NATO (Not even mentioning a partizan movement if Ukraine would lose). Not sure why would Russia want Ukraine to surrender a land that they were already occupying for what, eight years? This is less of a conspiracy and more of an actual possibility, no NATO country is at liberty to defy russia with their own soldiers without being attacked first. Any conflict between nuclear powers could easily escalate into nuclear war, any direct confrontation between NATO countries besides the US could still lead to that as a chain reaction.